Software defined radio has the flexibility to send and receive radio signals over a wide spectrum of frequencies and over a wide bandwidth simply by altering the software in the system. Software defined radio allows a single system to communicate with virtually any other system. Accordingly, software defined radio has applications in consumer cellular phones communicating in and between different countries and applications in many military communication systems.
To accommodate the high performance, high-speed digital requirements of software defined radio, the analog portion of software defined radio has complicated tunable filters, amplifiers and preamplifiers. The conventional packaging of these analog components on a circuit board imposes a difficult hardware-packaging problem. The conventional packaging technology, using conventional printed circuit boards produces a physically large and heavy system having thermal issues that are difficult to manage. These complications limit the application of software defined radio and make portable software defined radios impractical for everyday consumer use and for aircraft and other military equipment.
Other problems associated with conventional packaging techniques of a software defined radio include the long interconnect traces between the many active and passive discrete components on the circuit board. These interconnects introduce unwanted noise into the software defined radio which further complicate otherwise taxed filtering systems integrated into the software defined radio. These interconnects also introduce parasitic trace and soldering interferences. These parasitic interferences further distort the transferred or received signal and decrease the affectability of the software defined radio.